That Lovely Lighting
by elliott ashes
Summary: OwenTom SLASH! Takes place right after the movie. Written for Animelover476 and Ashley. Sort of a romancedramahumorangst fic. First Cry Wolf Slash on FFN.


Well, here it is! The first ever Tom/Owen slash fic (on this site at least)! Hope you enjoy it, and please review! Oh, and the name is explained at the end.

Disclaimer: I do not own Cry Wolf or any of the characters that have been used in this story. It is a work of fiction and has no relation to the actors in the movie. That means you can't sue me.

Any grammar errors were most likely intentional; to help get the characters' though processes to flow right.

This fic is dedicated to, Ashley and Animelover476 who requested it. Hope you enjoy it!

That Lovely Lighting 

OWEN

Owen sat alone in the room where he had been told to stay. Technically, he didn't have to stay there anymore; he had been told he could go. It had been _before _that he had been told to stay there, while he was in custody. His father had paid the bail and he was free to go until the trial, nobody was stopping him from leaving. But really, there wasn't anywhere he could think of going right now.

He stared blankly at one of the many white walls of this brightly lit room. It wasn't the most intelligent expression, but then again, Owen didn't feel like the most intelligent guy. Actually, he didn't know what he felt exactly. He knew he should feel betrayed, angry. But he didn't really feel any of these things. He felt mostly numb. He was stuck in a state of mind between total clarity and chaotic confusion, so his brain seemed to be dealing with this by affecting a sort of murky clarity. It didn't really make any sense, but Owen had other things to focus on besides the irrationality of what he was feeling right now. But he couldn't seem to figure out what those other things were. And as time oozed by, Owen felt himself slipping deeper and deeper into his own confusion.

TOM

_This is friggin' ridiculous,_ thought Tom. He was sitting on the sofa of his living room, staring blankly at the TV, the remote long forgotten in his hand. He had been sitting this way for at least an hour. The students had all been sent home after the recent murder of that teacher. What was his name again? Tom couldn't seem to remember. He didn't particularly care either. His mind had been flinging questions such as these at him for the past hour, unrelentingly. He knew he was probably trying to distract himself. From Owen.

Ever since he had met Owen, Tom had an increasingly hard time keeping him out of his mind. Owen was _everywhere, _his classes, his school dorm, even his dreams. It hadn't taken him long to realize he was attracted to Owen. Everything Owen did had seemed amazing. How he typed, how he held his fork when he ate, how he mumbled in his sleep. Tom knew so much about Owen that he sometimes feared he was turning into some freaky stalker. Everything about him fascinated Tom, right down to his accent. He was British, right?

_What's it like in Britain?_ Wondered Tom. "Damn it!" he exclaimed, pounding his hand against the coffee table and smashing the long ignored remote in the process. He didn't really care about the remote though. His parents would probably be upset over the remnants of the "clicker" when they got back from wherever they were. The remote was theirs, just like this house was. Tom had been living at the school dorm up until this point. He wondered if he would have to go to a different school now. The school was unlikely to reopen after all the crap that had happened there. What would another school be like?

He realized that his brain was trying to do the weird distracting thing to him again and mentally swore at himself. He didn't want to think about Owen, but he didn't want to be playing these damn mind games with himself. There didn't seem to be much else to do though, as the remote was now broken and Tom felt too lazy to go turn on the TV. Yeah, that was the reason. He purposely omitted the fact that he hadn't felt like turning on the TV when he had the remote right there, intact, in his hand. Or the fact that the TV was only about two meters away. His mind pointed these out to him, but Tom was feeling to tired to argue with himself. And, since he didn't feel like playing weird mind games, that only left him one choice: think about Owen. Yeah, he knew his logic sucked, but he was arguing with _himself. _He was pretty sure that now he was totally beyond making any sense.

_Did I just think the word "totally?" _wondered Tom. Now he was _really _starting to scare himself.

)0(W(E)N(

_She said no one would believe me._ Owen knew this was true. He didn't even want to believe it. It was just one more time that Dodger was right. As always.

Owen was rather surprised that nobody had told him to go home yet. Maybe the people here weren't used to inmates refusing to leave when they had the chance. Inmate. Convicted criminal. Owen turned these words over in his head. They seemed to be more and more sinister every time. Owen had never expected to be labeled as any of these things. Until now, those words had seemed rather distant and frightening. Sure, there was that time at his old school, but this time seemed different for some reason. Maybe it was because the first time he could hardly grasp the reality of what had happened. This time, time in prison was an all too real possibility. There was no escaping his fate, and when the hearing came, he knew his words would have little to do with the court's decision. It was in the hands of lawyers and judges now, people he had never met. People who would take one look at the records and dismiss this as an easy case, Owen feared.

He remembered when he was a kid, and he and his family had been eating dinner. The TV had been on, and a news reporter had been talking about a teenage boy who had stolen a car. They interviewed the boy's parents, who tried to defend their son's actions. Owen's mother had then announced in disgust that if her son ever went to jail, she wouldn't even go to pay his bail.

And she hadn't come. She had stayed at home while Owen's father had paid for the bail. Not that Owen could blame her. No parent wants their kid to become a criminal, and Owen's mother had always had very high moral standards and an even stronger will to stand by her words. She didn't care to hear Owen's side of the story, the fact was, he was a _criminal. _He had _killed someone. _And Owen was forced to accept the rationality behind these accusations. And the rationality was, they were true.

)T(o(M)

Tom withdrew his car keys from his coat pocket. He unlocked his car, a red van he had bought used for cheap. It appeared that the previous owner had attempted to commit vehicular suicide with it. He yanked hard at the door to the car, which reluctantly opened. One of the hinges also snapped off, and the door was hanging kind of crooked now. Tom decided to ignore this new mutilation to his car and stepped inside, pulling the door shut behind him. He drove off as fast as he could to get to Owen.

He had decided that it made the most sense to go right to where Owen was. As Owen obviously had no intention of leaving his thoughts, Tom decided that it was better to at least hang out with the real thing. At least it made more sense than going over previous conversations in his head.

When Tom had heard the rumors that Owen had been arrested for the murder of their teacher, Tom had never believed them. Owen wouldn't do anything like that, he was a good guy. And even if Owen had killed the guy, there had to be more to the story. There had to.

Tom had to be there for Owen. As a friend, he told himself. As a friend. Owen had just been arrested, and Tom figured the last thing he needed was Tom blurting out all the stuff he felt. Tom had tried many times to make himself stop thinking of Owen as having even the slightest possibility of being more than a friend. Owen liked Dodger. Therefore, he did not like Tom. _Amazing Tom logic to the rescue again, _thought Tom sarcastically.

There had been a few times when Tom had tried to tell Owen how he felt. He had just told himself "Tell him, he might return your feelings. Who gives a fuck about Dodger?" but then he had seen how close the two of them were. It had made Tom angry at first. First he was angry with Dodger, then at himself for thinking that way. Why couldn't he be happy for them? Since then, he had tried to hide those ugly feelings of anger, as well as those feeling of love he had felt for Owen. It had been an uphill battle, but Tom felt he had mostly succeeded.

Until now. His feelings for Owen had resurfaced, stronger than ever. And he didn't want to repress them ever again. He knew that was a stupid thing to think, it would probably be bad for both of them, but Tom couldn't stop feeling this way. His feelings for Owen were maybe the strongest emotion he had ever felt. It was like if he stopped himself from thinking about Owen, Tom would never be able to feel again. Tom almost snorted out of disgust at his overly dramatic thought. _What the… how can I almost snort?_

OWEN

Owen was standing up, gazing across the room at the door, and contemplating leaving. He wasn't quite sure where he planned to go, but he certainly wouldn't be allowed to stay here forever. He couldn't go home due to massive shame and he couldn't go to school either, due to it being a crime scene. He didn't really want to be around people right now. He considered the prospect of wandering aimlessly around town. He could just go for a walk, but as this was a metropolitan area the chances of avoiding all people were sparse.

**(T)o(M)**

Damn traffic. Damn rain. Tom shot a death glare at the car in front of him. The rain pounded hard against the windshield of his car and as the wipers steadily swung back and forth, Tom became more and more impatient. Every ominous _swish _reminded him of how slowly he was moving. How long he was taking to get to Owen. The rain had made the roads slippery, coloring the tarmac, or whatever the stuff on the road was called, a shimmery black colour. The annoyingly cheerful voice of the radio announcer had said that a car had spun out of control due to the slippery road conditions and had blocked up traffic. The announcer had then proceeded to tell a bad joke about roosters.

Tom slammed his head against the headrest and groaned in exasperation. This was taking _forever_. He could run faster than this. And as the windshield wipers swooshed and swished and made every other damn onomatopoeia seemingly possible, and then some, and the line of cars in front of him still refused to move, Tom decided to do just that. Run. He stepped out of the car, despite several protests and yells from the drivers behind him. Ignoring a particularly nasty threat, he slammed the door behind him. He took off at a dangerously fast sprint as the car door fell to the asphalt with a harsh clatter, raindrops clinking against the rusted metal.

He ran as fast as he could, not even taking the time to think. The rain forced his brown hair down into a helmet-like shell, a few points sticking to his face and blocking his eyes. His jacket absorbed the liquid, forcing the cold water against his warm skin. Not once did Tom ask himself why he was doing this. No, that's wrong, he did. The thought forced itself to the surface of his consciousness several times. But Tom simply forced it back down, as far away as possible. Because something was telling him that if he focused on that question too much, answered it, everything would end. He had to get to Owen. He had to run. That thought was the only engine that propelled Tom into this mad dash.

Tom's fast pace proved to become impossible to continue, and as his breath came in gasps and his legs began to feel heavy, he realized he had to slow down. He did this reluctantly, but as common sense and physical exhaustion proved to be stronger than his legs, he slowed down his pace slightly. Not very much, but enough to keep him from passing out from lack of oxygen at least. Fatigue weakened Tom; his pace slowing and questions once more clamoring into his consciousness. He tried to focus on small goals, a bench, a streetlight. Then, force of will and a sense of duty to Owen made him stop. He didn't need small goals; he only had one goal he needed to accomplish; to find Owen. Tom once more took off in an insane rush.

(O(w)e(n)&)T)o(m)

Owen sat down once more and sighed. This exercise was getting exhausting on so many levels. He had spent the last few minutes (hours? Seconds? Days? He had long since lost track of time.) Standing up and walking to the door, then changing his mind and going back to the little metal folding chair in the corner. He caught himself about to repeat this procedure once more, then stopped himself. Then, he thought _why not I might actually get out the door this time_, and did it all over again, exactly the same. Or it would have been. He probably would have repeated this simple procedure a considerable number of times, all exactly the same way. But this time, it wasn't the same. Because this time, the results of this much tested procedure did not go according to Owen's hypothesis. _This_ time, the outcome was compromised by a very moist figure emerging through the door.

It took Owen a moment to realize what exactly he was looking at. "Tom?" he asked (rather hesitantly for fear that he might actually be talking to some large animal).

"Yeah," gasped the figure. It pulled its hood of from it's head, revealing pricks of sopping brown hair, showing that it actually _was_ Tom. "What's up?" he asked, for lack of anything cleverer to say to break this awkward silence.

Owen hesitated, and then began to tell Tom everything that had happened. Owen was quite surprised that Tom actually listened to his story, intently, the whole time he talked. At first Owen suspected that it was a joke, that Tom was only pretending to listen. But as time went on, and Owen began to wonder what the punch line could possibly be, he realized that Tom was serious. Tom never said anything the entire time, but Owen could see from his expression and unwavering gaze that he was listening.

"And the worst thing is, she was right. Nobody will believe me. No matter what I say, it sounds crazy," finished Owen.

"I do," said Tom quietly, staring down at the floor.

"Huh?" asked Owen, not quite sure what Tom was talking about, or even if Tom was talking to him.

"I believe you," stated Tom. He lifted his head to meet Owen's eyes, and it was dead obvious from his somber expression that he meant what he was saying.

Then Owen, without thinking, leaned forward and kissed him. On the mouth. Owen wasn't quite sure why, he thought that it might have been something to do with the lighting in the room making Tom look very attractive. That, of course, is hogwash. The lights were extremely harsh and not at all flattering, especially to someone of Tom's complexion. Also, Tom was dripping wet, which would have made him glow eerily in this lighting. The only beautiful light in the room was the new light in which Owen was seeing Tom.

On the other hand, aesthetically pleasing lighting was the last thing on Tom's mind. His eyes widened in surprise as he realized what was happening. All his senses lit up with the excitement and pleasure of finally having his dream realized. His dream, which up until now had seemed so unbearably impossible.

When at last they pulled apart, both were gasping for breath. "Er… I'm sorry for that… I don't quite know what came over me… I think the lighting…" stammered Owen, his face turning bright red.

"Ah, who cares about the psychology behind it all," said Tom, waving a hand dismissively. He leaned forward and kissed Owen. Owen, deciding that Tom had the right idea, kissed him back.

THE END 

**I finally got to use the word hogwash somewhere! Yay (happy dance). **


End file.
